Shortly after Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans became part of the Zeitgeist, an opportunistic artist from Topps pitched the idea to release a set of trading cards that simply featured illustrations of popular branded products. One of the junior staffers, Art Spiegelman, suggested that they put a satirical twist on the cards, and thus was born the idea for Wacky Packages – a silly and grotesque collection of brain-damaged brand parodies.
Spiegelman would later go on to win a Pulitzer Prize for writing Maus: A Survivor’s Tale.
These proto-Garbage Pail Kids have gone in-and-out of production since their inception in 1967, having runs of varying degrees of success. The next series is scheduled to be released on August 23, 2010. Hey Topps, you got room for one more idea? How about this – instead of iPad… DiePad! Eh? Right? Am I right? Hey guys, where you goin’?
My personal favorites are the Wacky Packages that spoof Wacky Packages:
This type of self-reference carries over into the two Wacky Packages books that have been released. I recently picked these up, and found a nice surprise when I removed the dust jacket (which is made of he same material in which the cards are packaged):
GUUUUUUUUUM!
Actually, I loathe chewing gum. But still pretty cool, no?
